Eleven Alexander Technique teachers speak with Ruth Rootberg about their lives, their work, and their approach to using their Alexander skills as they face the challenges of aging with vitality, curiosity, poise, and passion.

Eleven Alexander Technique teachers speak with Ruth Rootberg about their lives, their work, and their approach to using their Alexander skills as they face the challenges of aging with vitality, curiosity, poise, and passion.

To live is to face problems and to find solutions for them. We do so consciously or unconsciously, using intuition, reason, imagination and many other faculties. We notice a situation, we draw conclusions from what we see, hear and feel, and we act on our conclusions in a constant process of observation, analysis and remedy. 'My shoulders are tight, because I am under a lot of stress, I need a good massage.' We observe a problem (tight shoulders), analyse the cause (stress) and seek a remedy for it (the massage). But what if we have misunderstood the problem? What if our description of the problem is based on false perceptions, or our analysis on false assumptions? What if the solution aggravates the problem? This book is about our suppositions, habits and behaviours. It is about posture and attitude, tension and relaxation, movement and rest. It is about interpersonal relationships, sports and performing arts. Above all, it is about embodied emotions and the body that thinks and feels. In this fully revised new edition, Pedro de Alcantara invites you to redefine the meaning of health and wellbeing, using the insights and tools developed by a man of genius: F.M Alexander.

Nine distinguished teachers of the Alexander Technique speak with Ruth Rootberg about their lives, their work, and their approach to using their Alexander skills as they face aging, loss of loved ones, and the challenges of illness and injury. With over 400 years of combined teaching experience, they reveal how the Alexander Technique provides a dependable pathway to meet the ongoing challenges of daily living. This book is a wonderful resource for Alexander Technique students, teachers, and anyone who seeks models of aging with dignity and passion. “Students and teachers of the Alexander Technique will gain valuable and thought-provoking insights from these personal stories and life lessons, generously shared by master teachers of the profession.” — Missy Vineyard Ehrgood, Teacher of the Alexander Technique and author of How you Stand, How you Move, How you Live “In an age that ‘worships youth’ it is important to learn to overcome our fear of growing older and, ultimately, of death. This is an important book because it gives you a template for aging gracefully. The spirit of enjoying whatever each day brings and of continual learning at every stage of life infuses each of these master teachers as they discuss the Alexander Technique as a practical tool that allows life to be ‘just a little easier.’” — Michael Frederick, Alexander Technique Teacher, training director, and founding director of the International Congresses on the Alexander Technique. “I think it would be wonderful if, when a person turns 65 and receives a Medicare card, eligibility for the card would require lessons in the Alexander Technique.” — Sarnie Ogus Alexander Technique teacher

The Alexander Technique (AT) is a remarkably simple but powerful method for learning to skillfully control how your brain and body interact, allowing you to better coordinate your movements while increasing the accuracy of your mind’s thoughts and perceptions. Now, in How You Stand, How You Move, How You Live, leading Alexander Technique master teacher Missy Vineyard sheds a completely fresh light on this revolutionary method and, in the process, offers path-breaking insight into the mind-body connection. Vineyard thoroughly explains and teaches the central skills of the AT through simple self-experiments, and she offers engaging stories of students in their lessons to show its effective application across a range of disciplines, including the performing arts, athletics, health, psychology, and education. How You Stand, How You Move, How You Live introduces us to a world within ourselves that we know surprisingly little about--and thereby helps us to understand why we often cannot do what we should be able to do, why we harm ourselves with chronic tension and anxiety, and why our thoughts often seem beyond our control. Vineyard is also the first AT teacher to draw on cutting-edge research in neuroscience and to synthesize those findings with AT theories and techniques. She fully illuminates the benefits to be reaped by mastery of the Alexander Technique, which include: Release from acute or chronic physical pain Enhanced mental attention and focus Reduced anxiety Improved balance and coordination Relief from tension and stress Increased ease and efficiency performing precise movement skills

"The Alexander Technique is now recognized the world over as the most revolutionary and far-reaching method developed for maintaining the health and efficiency of the body."--Back cover

Rebecca Nettl-Fiol and Luc Vanier utilize their ten years of research on developmental movement and dance training to explore the relationship between a specific movement technique and the basic principles of support and coordination.